Discussion No. 3: “Does the Bible Have a Purpose”?

How it came up

No conversation this time. This one is just a question, and it is the question under every other question this House will ever take up. If we are going to open this book over and over and ask what it says about armies, marriage, money, kings, and the rest, then at some point the book itself has to be asked what it is for.

So let’s ask it plainly, in three parts. Does the Bible have a purpose? If it does, what is that purpose? And does it still hold true today, in 2026 and beyond?

Let’s open the book and see what the books say they are for.

Opening the book

The Bible never states a purpose for itself

Let’s be exact about one thing first. The name “Bible” is not in the Bible. It comes from the Greek ta biblia, which means “the books,” plural. What we hold is a library, written over many centuries and bound into one cover long after the writing was done. So when we ask what the Bible is for, there is no single verse where the whole volume stands up and announces its purpose.

What there is, over and over, is a book inside the library saying what it is for. And when you line those statements up, they have something in common that goes straight to the third part of the question.

The law was written to be read to people not yet born

The first purpose statement is in the fifth book. Moses writes the law down and tells the priests what to do with it:

“And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 31:9)

“Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.” (Deuteronomy 31:12-13)

Hear it, learn it, fear the LORD, do it. That is the stated purpose. And notice who it is for: men, women, children, the stranger, and then the children “which have not known any thing.” The law was written for people who were not in the room yet.

Two chapters before that, the same book says something most Bible studies walk right past:

“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Secret things, and revealed things. The book itself says there are both. The revealed part is ours, for ever, so that we can do it. The secret part is not ours. Hold on to that, because the other books come back to it.

The other books say it was written as a witness

The Book of Jubilees, which is Scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, tells the same scene on Mount Sinai and gives a sharper reason for the writing. God tells Moses to write the words “in a book in order that their generations may see” that He had not forsaken them, and the writing is to stand as “a witness against them” when they turn to other gods (Jubilees 1:5-8, as printed in the Ethiopian Bible edition in this House’s library). In Jubilees the book is not only instruction. It is evidence. It is written down so that later generations cannot say they were never told.

The Book of Enoch, also Scripture in Ethiopia, has Enoch hand his books to his son with instructions to “deliver them to the generations of the world” (1 Enoch 82:1, Ethiopian Bible edition). Later in the same book there is a warning that sinners will “write books concerning their words,” and a promise that the true books “will be given to the righteous and the wise” to become a cause of joy and wisdom (1 Enoch 104:10-12, Ethiopian Bible edition). So Enoch says two things at once: the books are for the generations to come, and not every book that gets written will be true.

The word is sent out to do a job

Isaiah puts the purpose somewhere different. Not in the reader, and not in the writer. In the word itself:

“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

Rain does not ask whether the field believes in it. In Isaiah the word is sent out with a job and it does the job. If you take that verse at its word, the question “does it still hold true” is answered before it is asked, because the word’s purpose never depended on the reader’s century.

Ezra rewrites the whole library, and most of it is sealed

Now the one that deserves the most room. In the book called 2 Esdras, the law has been destroyed. Ezra says to God that “Your law is burned, therefore no man knows the things that You have done” (2 Esdras 14:21, Literal Standard Version, Covenant Press 2022). Then he asks permission to write it all again, and he states exactly why. He wants to write so “that men may be able to find the path, and that they which would live in the latter days may live” (2 Esdras 14:22, LSV).

Read that again. The stated purpose of rewriting the Scriptures is for the people who would live in the latter days. Not the people standing in front of Ezra. The ones coming later.

So Ezra takes five scribes into a field for forty days, drinks a cup that the text says was like fire, and dictates. In forty days, the text says, “ninety-four scrolls were written” (2 Esdras 14:44, LSV). Then God rules on what happens to them. The ones written first are to be published openly for “the worthy and unworthy” alike, but Ezra is told to “keep the seventy last” and give them only to the wise, “for in them is the spring of understanding” (2 Esdras 14:45-47, LSV).

Ninety-four written. Seventy held back for the wise. That leaves twenty-four for everyone else, and the Revised Standard Version prints that number outright at 14:45. If this book is right, the Bible most people own is the smaller stack, and it was always meant to be. That is Deuteronomy 29:29 again, the secret things and the revealed things, told as a story with a number on it.

Let’s be straight about this book. 2 Esdras is in the King James Apocrypha and in many older English Bibles, and the Ethiopian Bible edition in this House’s library names 1 and 2 Esdras among the Ethiopian tradition’s books, though that edition does not print the text of 2 Esdras. Protestant, Catholic, and most Eastern Orthodox churches count it as apocrypha. The edition in this House’s library dates it between 70 and 218 AD, long after the Ezra it is named for. And the numbers are not the same in every Bible: the King James Apocrypha reads “two hundred and four books” at 14:44, with a 1611 margin note offering 904, and gives no count for the published ones; the Literal Standard Version and the Revised Standard Version read ninety-four. The seventy held back is the same in all of them. This House reads it as part of the discussion, not as the last word. But it is the one book in the whole library that tells you, in plain numbers, that what you are holding is not all of it.

The New Testament writers say who they were writing for

John closes his gospel by saying why he wrote it:

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” (John 20:30-31)

Written so that “ye might believe.” No date on it. Whoever is reading is the “ye.”

Paul, writing to Rome, reads the older books this way:

“For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)

Written aforetime, for our learning. Paul is doing the very thing Deuteronomy and Jubilees and Ezra said would happen. A later generation picks up the older writing and says: this was written for us.

And then the verse everybody quotes when this question comes up:

“And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:15-17)

Doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction. That is the purpose statement most churches hand you, and it is a good one. But let’s be exact about what “scripture” meant when that letter was written. There was no New Testament collection yet; the letter Timothy was holding is part of it, and it was still being written. The scriptures Timothy knew “from a child” were the older writings. So the verse that gets used to define the purpose of the whole Bible was written about a smaller library than the one we hold, before most of our Bible existed. That does not make it wrong. It makes it a verse about the older books, written by a man who, in Romans 15:4, told you that the older books were written for later generations.

Where it landed

So, does the Bible have a purpose?

The Bible never claims one purpose for the whole volume, because the whole volume did not exist when any of it was written. But the books inside it state their purposes plainly, and they are not all the same purpose. Deuteronomy says: hear it, learn it, do it. Jubilees says: it is a witness against you. Isaiah says: the word is sent out to do a job and it does it. Ezra says: it is written so that people in the latter days can find the path. John says: it is written so that you believe and have life. Paul says: it is for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction. A witness against you and a comfort to you are not the same job. Which purpose a reader picks up changes how every page reads.

What is that purpose, then? It is at least six things, chapter and verse, and the reader has to decide which one they are holding.

And does it still hold true in 2026 and beyond? Here is what stood out when the books were laid side by side. Every single one of them says it was written for people who came later. Deuteronomy writes for the children who “have not known any thing.” Jubilees writes for “their generations,” Enoch for “the generations of the world.” Ezra writes for “the latter days.” Paul says it was “written aforetime” for us. The book already asked this question about itself and answered yes. That is its claim. It is not its proof. The reader in 2026 is the one the book says it was written for, and the reader is the one who decides whether the claim holds.

One more thing, because this House is for the questions nobody asks. Deuteronomy and Ezra both say that part of what was given was held back, and Enoch says the true books go to the righteous and the wise. Secret things. Books kept for the wise. Seventy sealed, the rest published. Whatever the Bible’s purpose is, the Bible itself says it is doing that purpose with part of the library missing. Whether that changes your answer or just opens a bigger question, I’ll leave to you. That’s what this House is for.

Come as you are. Bring the question you actually have.